Curie’s Mourning
by Night-Shadow-98
Summary: After losing her to the harsh, unforviving wasteland, Curie visits the grave of the Sole Survivor. Lost and in pain, she relives the horror of the day she lost the love of her life, but Curie has always been a girl of wide eyed optimism, and when she returns to Sanctuary, she might just find she has something worth living for.


**Disclaimer: The Fallout franchise is the property of Bethesda Studios, AKA, not mine. I do not profit in any way from this story. I just wrote this for fun.**

 **Curies Mourning**

Rain poured down Curie's brow, hiding her tears from the unforgiving wasteland. Her heart clenched, much in the same way it had for Dr. Burrow, but so much more. Her love. Her Mary. The woman who found her, all alone in that deep dark vault. Who saved her and gave her this wonderful body. She was gone. For 3 months she had been gone, and still the pain was as fresh as the day she held her in her arms for the last time.

Curie bent down and laid a bouquet of Hub flowers at the head of her loves grave stone.

"Hello, my love," she said looking at the name on the stone, "Preston said it would help if I spoke to you at your… your resting place. I don't know how it is supposed to. Help, but… I just… I miss you so much."

Curie started sobbing. Never in her long life had she felt such pain. Why on Earth did she agree to this? How was this supposed to help the pain go away? It was only making it worse. Her mind began replaying that day and all Curie could do was sit by and watch as she relieved her greatest failure once again.

-0-0-0-0-

 _"CUIRE GO!" Mary shouted, firing another burst into the advancing synths. One went down, sputtering and sparking._

 _"No my love! I will not leave you!" Curie shouted back, sniping another synth in the head with a laser bolt, but it made no difference. The remnants of the institute had been hard and work. For every synth they killed, 2 more seemed to take their place. This was their final act of defiance. Their last burst of life, with one purpose. To kill the woman who destroyed them._

 _"Curie, please, you have to get the people to safety, that's the only thing that matters!" Mary argued, tossing a Nuke Grenade into the approaching horde. "We are the Minutemen! It is our duty to protect the people, no matter what the cost!"_

 _Curie faltered. Mary was right. The people did come first, but it was easy to know this on a moral level, but something else entirely when you are faced with the potential of losing someone you love. She had no doubt that the institute would stop at nothing to see her love dead. How could she just run away and leave her girlfriend to die._

 _While Curie was wracked with indecision, another blast rang out from behind the walls of the Castle and artillery shells rained down on the synths destroying a good portion of them. Above them, a vertibird hovered spraying hundreds of bullets down on the Institute's soldiers. The Minutemen were fighting with all their might, but two smouldering vertibird wrecks and Ronnie Shaw's power armoured body laying on the ground was a sign that they were losing. This sight was what ultimately made up her mind. If she died here, there would be no one left to get the settlers to safety. Curie was about to give in and obey her loves orders to retreat when all of a sudden there was a loud crack from above. Looking upwards, Curie saw the vertibird was now on fire, and trailing smoke. The rotors were failing and it was seconds away from spinning out of control. The Vertibird pilot tried to make a hard left turn to avoid the crashing into the defending Minutemen, but unfortunately, a stray shot from a very lucky synth struck the vertibird in just the right way to send it careening into their lines. Curie watched in horror as the vertibird fell straight towards her. For a moment, she thought this was it; This would be how she died, but suddenly, there was a shout, and Curie was being flung sideways. A thunderous explosion ripped through the air and then… nothing._

 _When Curie regained consciousness, she didn't see the laser muskets of a reinforcing division of Minutemen, driving the synths back. All she could see was the love of her life, laying at her feet, in a pool of her own blood._

 _Desperately trying to shake the blur in her vision away, Curie fumbled in her pouch for a stimpack and quickly stabbed it into Mary's leg, but even as she did so, she knew it would not be enough. One of the propellers was lodged into her stomach._

 _"Mary… Mary hang on! I-I'll fix this!" She tried saying, but the look on Mary's face told her she knew she couldn't._

 _"Curie. Listen to me," Mary said, weakly, "please d-d-don't… d-don't…" her arm went slack and her breathing was slowing._

 _"No. NO! Mary… baby. Don't go! Don't go my love!" Curie searched her mind desperately for a way to save her, some medical miracle she could use to save her love from dying, but there was nothing. "Please don't what? Please don't what, my love, say it! What don't you want me to do? SAY IT!"_

 _But her loves eyes slowly closed and then… she was gone._

 _Curie would not remember much about the days after. All that she knew was that the Institute was now well and truly gone. The minutemen found their hideout and all the scientists were killed. Curie was happy they were all dead, but then she felt guilty for being happy for the death of others, then she felt nothing, just a dark, empty, hollow void where there had once been happiness._

-0-0-0-0-

Coming out of her flashback, Curie let out an anguished cry from the depths of her soul.

"I feel as if all my energy has been drained out of me," she sobbed, "I am hidden away in my room constantly and… and… oh God, why? Why couldn't I save you?! All my medical knowledge and none of it was worth anything when it really mattered. No… no not even that… i should have listened to you. I should have left when you told me too. If had had… if it had… Oh my love i am so sorry, please forgive me."

Curie fell to her knees, paying no mind to the mud beneath her. Why bother? She was already dirty inside. Why not let the outside reflect that?

"I feel as if the whole world has turned to black. Like I am lost in the deep again, back before you found me. Do you remember that day?" Her voice was steadier now, but still filled with so much pain. "It was the most wonderful day of my life. I saw you there, and I asked you, hoped with all of my heart, that you were a Vault Tec representative." despite her sorrow, Curie chuckled as she remembered what happened next. "You told me repeatedly you weren't Vault Tec, but I just let you in anyway. You always were so terribly honest, it's what I loved most about you."

Curie sat there, as all these feelings of love washed over her, mingling with her pain, and again, she broke down in uncontrollable sobs.

"I don't know how to go on, my love. Don't know what to do without you. What do I do?"

At that moment, the rain suddenly stopped, as if someone had just turned off the tap in the sky and Curie looked up. As she did she saw a beam of light streaming down from a break in the clouds. Miraculously, It feel directly onto her love's headstone. Seeing this odd coincidence, Curie felt something stirring inside her. Something she hadn't felt since her loves death.

Looking up just a bit further, Sanctuary was clearly visible down below and so was the whole rest of the Commonwealth. All over, streams of light were breaking through the clouds and for a moment, Curie sat there staring in awe, then let out a wet chuckle.

"A very odd coincidence, no," she said looking down at the headstone once again and for a moment, she could almost see her love standing there with her, smiling down at her.

"but also… inspiring." She finished.

Sniffling and wiping away her tears, Curie stood back up. The rays of light were now spreading further across the commonwealth. Illuminating everything that her love had worked so hard to build and her inspiration grew.

"Is this what you want?" Curie asked the air, "For me to keep bringing light to the world? I know how you loved my optimism so. Is that what you want me to do?"

Curie had no idea where all this was coming from. Even after years of being in a synth body, she still didn't know everything about the way it worked, but it was such a wonder to discover. Was this what humans called… faith?

Turning around, Curie looked down the path that back to Sanctuary. "Very well, I will work hard to do this, my love. I don't know if this is truly you speaking to me, but I will try to keep this world filled with happiness. Au revoir Mon Chérie. I...I'll come visit more often. I promise"

And with that, Curie started off down the path to Sanctuary.

-0-0-0-0-

Preston saw Curie coming down from the top of the hill.

"Hey, Curie. How… how are you feeling?" He asked.

Curie stopped and gave him a small smile. "Still in pain Monsieur Garvey, but…" Curie's smile got just a little bit brighter, "I also feel lighter. I have come to realize that even though she's gone. Her legacy still remains. The Minutemen are the best 'ope for humanity, so I will help preserve all that she has built."

Preston smiled joyfully. He'd hoped visiting the General's grave would help grieving synth, but he never imagined it would help this much. "That's a noble goal, ma'am. The General would be proud."

"I know monsieur Garvey. In fact, I have some plans I wish to run by you," Curie said, actually sounding excited for the first time in months. "One of my last conversations with Mary was about the state of the cars around here. With my knowledge of pre war manufacturing, we believed that we could get them running again. Think of it, monsieur Garvey. Cars, on the roads again. Oh, and there is that old rocket booster at ArcJet Systems. Some of the terminals there talked about going to mars. With resources so limited here on Earth, we thought it might be worth it to go to other planets in our solar system and mine them. If we could do that our resource problems could be over!"

Preston had completely lost her after the rocket booster part, but he could see that it held a lot of significance to Curie. And the part about the cars. That would be a dream come true.

"I think those are great ideas, Curie." He said with a fond smile.

"Hehe, I can see most of what I am saying is going over your head, but that is ok. My loves dream for the world will come true, no matter what obstacles I find in my way. I may not have been able to save her, but… I can still save her dream."

Curie turned towards downtown Boston and by extension, the whole rest of the Commonwealth. Her mind was whirling with ideas of education, schools, centres of learning. Trauma centres, mental health clinics, addiction care centres. Production manufacteries, tech industries, and oh so much more. Curie was in a rather unique position. She knew so much about the world before the atom bombs, and she was part of an organization that could bring back those days, to an extent. Repeating the mistakes of the old world was not something Curie wanted, but the comfort, safety, and happiness. Those were the things she wanted to bring back, and with her synth body, she could be around for a long, long time to come. Her love may be gone, and it may be her own fault, but she can still make things right. She can still make up for her failures and she knew just where to start.

"I guess the first thing I should do, should be the last thing _you_ tried to do." She said resolutely to no one in particular. She then turned to Preston. "Monsieur Garvey, could you please gather up some people, I need to send out a lot of messages."

Preston nodded immediately, used to taking orders from her, when the General was alive. "What are you thinking ma'am?" He asked.

Curie once again turned to downtown Boston with a far off look in her eye. "We are going to revive a movement that the Commonwealth so desperately needs right now. Tell them… tell them the Minutemen wish to discuss a new Commonwealth Provisional Government."

Preston face beamed when he heard this. "Of course, ma'am. I'll get right on it,"

"Thank you Monsieur Garvey. You are a true and loyal friend." Curie said and walked towards Mary's old office. As she did, Preston watched her go with fondness in his smile. Underneath his breath, he uttered one final sentence.

"Anytime... General Curie."

The End

 **A/N:**

 **Hope you enjoyed this little one-shot. This was just a little plot bunny that crossed my mind when I was playing Fallout 4 the other day. I was thinking about the Commonwealth Wasteland and how dangerous it is and how easily someone can die there and how that could affect someone like Curie. Curie is hands down my favourite companion because of how cute and full of wonder she is. Her whole personality hinges on that hopeful optimism, boundless joy and wide eyed innocence she expresses in every one of her dialogs. I wanted to write something about her losing the one she loved, but still though all heartbreak and loss, finds the will to go on.**

 **So yeah, I just wanted to get this story off my chest. Hope you found some enjoyment out of it. Cheers!**


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